So I need to make an eye with the lid. Just those two, and I’m not sure how I would need to model the lid and rig it in order for it to have a realistic blinding animation. I’m gonna be using Blender, but I’m thinking of animating it in Unity, since I’ve been having problems with using Blender animations in Unity.
Can someone please help me out here?
P.S. I already modeled the outside of the eye. Now I’m just not sure where and how to attach the eye lid while modeling it, and how to model it so I can rig and animate it in a way that won’t make it look like LSD. And I know it can be as simple as attaching a hemisphere to the eye and rotating it, but I want a more natural and realistic feel to it.
I’m not a blender user, but here is a couple great general 3D processes to rig and animate a realistic eyes.
Oh - and I strongly suggest animating in your 3D package because importing the rig into Unity might be troublesome and Unity will limit your ability to use the advanced animation and rigging features in your 3D app. Unless the blinking is going to be player controlled - no reason to use Unity for animating - for this specific setup.
Overcome the difficulty in blender so you can take advantage of the 3D application.
This is a pretty simple process to rig an eye in maya - all tools used should be in blender also. This is a little more simplified but will probably work for your needs.
You may also consider 3-5 simple morphs for animating the blink. This would probably suit your needs. I say 3-5 morphs because if you only have two positions the morph in Unity will be a linear tween between the open and closed position and the lid will clip the curved surface of the eyeball.
A more advanced process is to use Splines/curves to control the different speeds of the lid, the morphology of the lid as the eyeball rotates, and to also allow the upper lid to cover 3/4 of the eyeball and the lower lid to only cover 1/4 of the eyeball. This is for a realistic eye setup.
Create a Master root node. Everything will be parented to this object so you can move the entire model and rig around in 3D without difficulty.
Create an eyeball control object (bone) to rotate the eyeball.
Skin the eyeball to the eyeball control.
Parent the eyeball control to the Master root node.
Create 3-6 splines/curves that conform to the surface of the eyelid for both top and bottom lids. (More splines = more detailed rig = more detail and control in the animation. Less splines = less detailed rig = less control) The example below only show 3 for simplicity. Make sure the splines have the same curvature as the eyeball, but sit on the surface of the lids.
The splines should have at least 3 vertex positions. You might get away with only 2 (start and end) but my suggestion is 3.
Parent the splines to the Master root node.
Create/align dummy or helper objects at the spline vertex positions.
Parent the dummy/helpers to the spline vertex positions. (In 3D Max this is an automated process called splineIK - I don’t know if blender has it or not)
Path Constrain the 3 helper objects each - to each of the spline/curves. (this is 3D Max lingo - might be called something else in blender) This is the same concept as using a spline to control the position of a camera fly through in an environment.
Create 3 more dummy helpers and position/align them with the 3 path constrained dummy helpers. You might need to make these dummy helpers small bone objects. (Max fbx export allows for dummy helpers to be considered as bones)
Parent each bone to each path constrained dummy helper.
Skin the lid to the bones.
Now you can move the root around and everything will follow in 3D space.
You can animate the rotation of the eyeball and if desired adjust the lid to mimic realistic lid morphology when the eyeball rotates.
You can animate the position of the path constrained dummy helpers along the spline. This gives you ability to animate the lid in an accordion fashion as it does in real life. Note: you will not want to animate all 3 dummy helpers to the same point on the spline path. This will result in mesh pinching.
Additionally you can translate/rotate/move the bones independently for additional control.
This setup is now ready to be animated. You can go even further and setup animation controls to make this easier for animating, but that’s even more complicated and software specific. At this stage everything can be controlled/animated manually without difficulty.
This rig is pretty advanced and you probably don’t need so much control. But if you want it to be realistic this is the best approach to use.
Here are a couple more simple rig setups.
This might also be helpful. A different advanced eye rigging process. Here is a nice realistic eye movement video.
